Our day began with a buffet style breakfast at the hotel. Then, we regrouped and boarded our tour bus, a double-decker (yes!), to explore the city of Barcelona with some local tour guides. We started on a bus tour of Barcelona's city center and then went to the Basílica de la Sagrada Família. The basilica has been under constant construction since 1882. Designed by Antoni Gaudi, the basilica is massive. Architecturally speaking, its one of the most unique structures I've ever seen, because it is so unique in its design.
After spending time at the basilica, we all boarded our tour bus and headed to Park Güell, a development on a hill overlooking Barcelona designed and built my Antoni Gaudi as a neighborhood for Barcelona's elite. It was very unique and almost fairytale like in its design and aesthetic. Two of the buildings looked as if they were straight out of "Hansel & Gretel" in the way they looked like gingerbread houses.
After our time at Park Güell, we were back on the bus to head to Barcelona's city center to explore La Rambla, an open pedestrian avenue with shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. Our EF Tour Directors informed us that as a result of gentrification in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, tour guides are not allowed to lead large groups through this historic district, so their direct involvement with the group would be greatly reduced or if caught in the act, they could face hefty fines. In order to get around this, our EF Tour Directors gave us recommendations of where to go, how to get there and made themselves available to get answers to any questions so they could provide us with directions on how to get to somewhere specific. Since it was time for lunch and my group was hungry, finding something to eat was a priority. We set out to find an area recommended by our EF Tour Director, Edu, Plaça Reial (The Royal Square) to find us some lunch. My group arrived and settled on a place called Bar Tomate and we had one of our best meals of the trip. Two of us got chicken and asparagus paella, two of us got chicken fajitas, one of us got a fish and chips, one of us got a dish featuring over easy eggs, Iberian ham atop french fries and some of us got a Spanish twist on hamburgers. The food was phenomenal! It also didn't hurt that our small group got to take advantage of some downtime to continue bonding and sharing stories from our trip.
After lunch, the entire group met back up at our predetermined meeting point to go over some operational logistics for later in the evening before splitting up into our evening activities. Once we finished with our rendezvous, we were all sent out to spend some free time to explore La Rambla and the surrounding area. Quite a few members of our group wound up exploring a local open air public market called "The Mercat de Sant Josep de la Boqueria" which had all sorts of local food offerings. There were so many vendors and merchants, it was amazing! From the aromas of the different foods, to the size of the fresh produce, it was pretty remarkable. It reminded me of some of the other markets I've been to in bigger cities, but the best thing about it was the fresh produce. From fresh strawberries half the size of an adult's fist to grapes the size of golf balls, it was so fresh and so flavorful it was extraordinary.
This is also the time in which a lot of us in our group encountered the phenomenon that is the the "pay toilet" where an individual has to pay a "toll" (I'm looking at you, Illinois!) to use the restroom. There's another fun fact that goes along with this, as well, and that's finding out that in order to use the individual stalls in the men's room, there were super-sized industrial rolls of toilet paper in the central part of the restroom that you had to go to and tear off what you thought you needed ahead of time before you went into a stall. This blew our minds, because at no time in my life have I ever found myself in a situation where one was required to choose the amount of toilet paper you needed beforehand.
Once many of us finishing meandering through the public market, it was time to regroup once again. The large group split into two with a portion of the group taking in a traditional Flamenco show performance and the remaining members of the group took advantage of some free time to further explore the sights and sounds of La Rambla. The flamenco show attendees reported that it was excellent. However, one student was overheard recounting that they were really disappointed that there were no tall, slender pink birds, so the overall show was a bit disappointing. Those that didn't attend the flamenco show continued further exploring La Rambla.
Following the flamenco show and exploration of La Rambla, it was time for our group to get dinner. We all headed to an Italian restaurant for pasta or pizza. It was another great meal and it was nice to have a wide variety of pasta dishes and even the pizza options presented a nice variety of combinations. Overall, everyone was very pleased with their dinner.
After dinner, it was time to explore some of the Gothic Quarter on our way back to our tour buses and head back to our hotel for the evening.
Upon returning to our hotel, some of the students headed to the "DJ party" that was part of the evening's entertainment. Students danced, some even managed to rope some of their teachers into joining them, so it was a lot of fun to see everyone blow off some steam after a long, eventful day.
To Be Continued...
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